Charles_McG
Ciderwright
I used this to replace some damaged vinyl decals that I had a helpful student at the local high school make originally. Now I can do my own.
My printer is a Creality Ender 5, though the original article was for a different machine. It ought to be generalizable. I happen to have both the stock flexible magnetic bed, and the Creality glass bed that has one side coated. I set up to make changeovers as hassle free as possible.
My general plan was from this Instructable: https://www.instructables.com/id/Use-3D-Printer-As-a-Plottercutter/ . I had to made a few changes for my circumstances, but the Instructable showed the path and the alterations were straightforward.
My first attempt at a pen holder failed. The Ender 5 is just different enough that the Ender 3 version on Thingiverse (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3422179) didn't work well. I went though several cycles of mod & print before I decided I just didn't like it. I ended up using the Ender 5 EZABL mount in the download bundle from TH3D. I printed a simple ring to adapt the drag knife holder diameter to the EZABL mount and added an M4 locking screw. That moves the knife from X- to X+ (relative to the nozzle) and gets it out of the way of possible homing collisions with the clips holding the bed on. And it doesn't block the print cooling fan (though I don't use it with the PLA or PETG I print). I also printed off a Z-axis offset 'cap' (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3450455) so I can put on the thicker cutting bed and not change my bed leveling (manual so far) for printing. I lose a few inches of the bed compared to printing, but I still have about a 9"x7" work area.
On the cutting side, I bought a replacement Roland engraving knife holder and blades from Amazon, along with an assortment of 12”x12” vinyl sheets, some Cricut cutting mats and a roll of transfer tape. About $60 in supplies. It turns out you use the red capped blades for vinyl and the 60 degree blude capped blades for thicker material. I'll let you know how centering rings from cardstock goes.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CK4PPLB/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079VWBFHF/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EYTANGI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017Y20RI6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I trimmed the cutting mat to the size of the glass bed and clipped the cutting mat to the back of the glass (didn’t want to accidentally scratch the printing side) and then to the Ender bed in place of the magnetic surface. I put the offset cap on to shift the zero point. To get it all working well, I put a nut under the offset cap to raise it up a pinch so the nozzle doesn't drag on the vinyl during a cut. I mounted the knife holder so the top edge of the 'mounting ring' is flush with the top surface of the EZABL mount. That should put the bottom of the knife holder slightly above the nozzle height, so I won't have to remove it for printing. (I need to check that - I can always remove the knife holder if I need to.) I played with the knife height (easy to adjust) to cut the vinyl and just score (mostly) the backer, first homing the print head and then using the controls to move it in the Y axis to watch how it cut a scrape piece of vinyl. At this point, I think I'll tune it to lightly score paper and then use the Z-cutting height to adjust for the vinyl thickness.
I didn't have Inkscape - but I do know, with the custom extension written by the author of the Instructable.
I prepped the logo in Illustrator, saved as .SVG and opened up in Inkscape per the Instructable. One step is saved this way - the image is already paths. Used his custom gcode script and sent to the printer (it's a special 'Save As'). You need to be mindful of the bed limits, both min and max X and Y. The Instructable covers finding the limits. Putting the knife on the X+ side of the nozzle means you don't have to worry about the X min limit. You can use the Z cutting height in the save options to tune the cut, somewhat. I plan to try using that to do multi-pass cuts on cardstock, working from higher Z to lower. Move the resulting gcode to SD card, pop it in the printer and Bob's Your Uncle.
I did one test on just paper and two more on scrap vinyl before the one photo’d, which are on the phone, so I'll attach as comments. Along the way, I discovered that the Auto Trace function of Illustrator that I had used to capture my original Thiokol logo from the Estes decal had left a number of little jags and loops in the paths. They were hidden by the width of the line I was using onscreen - but they appeared in the test cut as little cutouts. I got a new image from EZ2CDave's repository, simplified those paths a touch and tried again. Much Better.
Cutting:
My printer is a Creality Ender 5, though the original article was for a different machine. It ought to be generalizable. I happen to have both the stock flexible magnetic bed, and the Creality glass bed that has one side coated. I set up to make changeovers as hassle free as possible.
My general plan was from this Instructable: https://www.instructables.com/id/Use-3D-Printer-As-a-Plottercutter/ . I had to made a few changes for my circumstances, but the Instructable showed the path and the alterations were straightforward.
My first attempt at a pen holder failed. The Ender 5 is just different enough that the Ender 3 version on Thingiverse (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3422179) didn't work well. I went though several cycles of mod & print before I decided I just didn't like it. I ended up using the Ender 5 EZABL mount in the download bundle from TH3D. I printed a simple ring to adapt the drag knife holder diameter to the EZABL mount and added an M4 locking screw. That moves the knife from X- to X+ (relative to the nozzle) and gets it out of the way of possible homing collisions with the clips holding the bed on. And it doesn't block the print cooling fan (though I don't use it with the PLA or PETG I print). I also printed off a Z-axis offset 'cap' (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3450455) so I can put on the thicker cutting bed and not change my bed leveling (manual so far) for printing. I lose a few inches of the bed compared to printing, but I still have about a 9"x7" work area.
On the cutting side, I bought a replacement Roland engraving knife holder and blades from Amazon, along with an assortment of 12”x12” vinyl sheets, some Cricut cutting mats and a roll of transfer tape. About $60 in supplies. It turns out you use the red capped blades for vinyl and the 60 degree blude capped blades for thicker material. I'll let you know how centering rings from cardstock goes.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CK4PPLB/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079VWBFHF/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EYTANGI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017Y20RI6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I trimmed the cutting mat to the size of the glass bed and clipped the cutting mat to the back of the glass (didn’t want to accidentally scratch the printing side) and then to the Ender bed in place of the magnetic surface. I put the offset cap on to shift the zero point. To get it all working well, I put a nut under the offset cap to raise it up a pinch so the nozzle doesn't drag on the vinyl during a cut. I mounted the knife holder so the top edge of the 'mounting ring' is flush with the top surface of the EZABL mount. That should put the bottom of the knife holder slightly above the nozzle height, so I won't have to remove it for printing. (I need to check that - I can always remove the knife holder if I need to.) I played with the knife height (easy to adjust) to cut the vinyl and just score (mostly) the backer, first homing the print head and then using the controls to move it in the Y axis to watch how it cut a scrape piece of vinyl. At this point, I think I'll tune it to lightly score paper and then use the Z-cutting height to adjust for the vinyl thickness.
I didn't have Inkscape - but I do know, with the custom extension written by the author of the Instructable.
I prepped the logo in Illustrator, saved as .SVG and opened up in Inkscape per the Instructable. One step is saved this way - the image is already paths. Used his custom gcode script and sent to the printer (it's a special 'Save As'). You need to be mindful of the bed limits, both min and max X and Y. The Instructable covers finding the limits. Putting the knife on the X+ side of the nozzle means you don't have to worry about the X min limit. You can use the Z cutting height in the save options to tune the cut, somewhat. I plan to try using that to do multi-pass cuts on cardstock, working from higher Z to lower. Move the resulting gcode to SD card, pop it in the printer and Bob's Your Uncle.
I did one test on just paper and two more on scrap vinyl before the one photo’d, which are on the phone, so I'll attach as comments. Along the way, I discovered that the Auto Trace function of Illustrator that I had used to capture my original Thiokol logo from the Estes decal had left a number of little jags and loops in the paths. They were hidden by the width of the line I was using onscreen - but they appeared in the test cut as little cutouts. I got a new image from EZ2CDave's repository, simplified those paths a touch and tried again. Much Better.
Cutting:
